Portugal Spain

We were happy with the results of the game but the game itself was not that exciting. The Portuguese had a few chances to score but the Spaniards totally dominated the game. It says a lot about the Spanish team that both Silva and Fabregas do not make the starting 11.

Seeing the Spanish team play live it is clear that they are a very organized team that is full of self confidence. Their central defenders, Puyol and Picque, do not mark the opposing forwards but play more of a zone defense. For example, in the Portugal game they allowed Ronaldo to roam freely and did not shadow him. They managed, however, to completely close Ronaldo down and he was a non-factor in the game.

Xavi is the bread and butter of the team. The local papers here call him the Einstein of the team since everything starts and ends with him. I would agree with that but Busquets also plays a much more central role in the team than I realized. He typically picked up the ball from the defenders and started the attack. Xavi would then eventually take over the ball. So if Xavi is the Einstein of the team, Busquets is Bohr. Watching the Spanish team play, however, raised some questions about their ability to score. They are great with the ball covering about 90% of the field but need someone to finish. They really only play with one true center forward - Torres.

Torres is still far from his usual self and was subbed with about 30 minutes left. His replacement Loriento was much more dangerous. So who will score the Spanish goals? David Villa had some great runs and Iniesta roams all over the field so they certainly have players that score. But they need that player to score the simple put in. I still think they have a good chance to win it all.

I was surprised by the number of Spanish supporters at the game. We had been told that the Portuguese fans would dominate. There was an awful lot of yellow at the game. Perhaps most of the neutral supporters were rooting for Spain.

It was our final game here at the World Cup. We had great seats and enjoyed ourselves tremendously. Afterwards, we had dinner on Long Street. In order to celebrate the Spanish victory, we decided to do what the Spaniards do - have dinner at midnight.

My friend Kiddi and his kids left for Iceland yesterday. We had dinner with Willams student Faisal Khan last night.